


Swinging between life and death

by Nestra



Category: CSI: Las Vegas
Genre: Gen, challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-05-28
Updated: 2004-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nestra/pseuds/Nestra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another night, another case, another victim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swinging between life and death

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [A Thousand Whispers](http://www.nickandgreg.com/1000whispers/) CSI challenge. Participants were given a prompt from a poem by T.S. Eliot.
> 
> Thanks to Sophia Prester, for the beta.

The young woman's body was splayed on the concrete like a pile of discarded clothes. In fact, her clothes were so big for her that the only immediate clue to her presence in them was the puddle of blood that haloed her head, tinted with colored reflections from the red and blue lights on top of the squad cars.

"Waitress spotted her and called 911," Brass said. "Just got off the night shift, was driving home, and saw her lying on the side of the road."

"Any ID?" Grissom asked.

"Yeah." He flipped open his notebook, although Grissom was sure that he could have recited the details from memory. "Lucy Sanchez, 26."

Death is a process of reduction. As the body fails, you're reduced to a collection of nonfunctioning organs, muscles, bones, and fluids. After death, you're reduced to an object, an item, something to be cared for, embalmed and buried, or cremated. And for the unlucky, there is another stage in between those two, in which you're reduced to your biographical details and the ugliest aspects of your fate. Name: Lucy Sanchez. Age: 26. Apparent homicide victim.

"Preliminary guess on the COD, David?"

The assistant coroner looked up from his examination of the body. "Exsangunation, probably, from the amount of blood. There's a large incision across her throat."

Good news for Grissom. Throat-cutting was messy. Even if the killer had stood behind Ms. Sanchez, he -- or she -- had likely gotten sprayed with at least some blood. And they'd be able to reconstruct a good deal of the crime based on the splatter pattern.

Not such good news for Lucy Sanchez, 26, who had bled to death, lying on the pavement of a deserted side street.

***

"Guy was definitely standing behind her." Sara stepped back from the table and mimed the movement with her hands. "Comes up behind her with something like a straight razor, cuts her throat with one smooth motion, steps back and lets her fall."

Grissom nodded, eyeing the shirt that Sara had spread out on the table. "Have we figured out why her clothes were so big?"

"She was living in a women's shelter over on Laredo. Maybe they didn't have anything that fit her."

"Running from an abusive husband?"

Sarah nodded, and he noted the tension in her shoulders as she flipped open a file. "Definitely our most likely suspect. Jason Givens, 25. His rap sheet's got a few counts of drunk and disorderly and one charge for assault. She filed for a restraining order a few weeks ago."

"Warrant?"

"Give me twenty minutes, and it'll be in my hand." Oh, she was angry. He wasn't always perceptive when it came to reading people, but she was hardly trying to hide it. Fury made her fingers clench. Rage made her jaw work. Desire for revenge made her jittery. And all of it made her less effective.

"We'll get him," Grissom said.

She took the hint and let out a breath. "It just pisses me off, you know? This guy thinks he can smack her around, and when she tries to leave him, he tracks her down and kills her. It makes me wonder who's winning sometimes."

"If the evidence is there, it'll be open-and-shut."

"If." She sounded unhappy. Sara disliked dealing with ambiguities.

"Science is full of 'ifs', Sara. We're the ones who solidify them, give them shape and substance."

She wasn't satisfied with that answer, he could tell, but she so seldom was satisfied by anything he said. She simply nodded and headed out the door, pulling out her cell phone as she went. Calling to check on the warrant, no doubt, using activity to push the anger to the back of her mind.

Grissom was rather fond of ambiguities, because he recognized them for what they were -- an inescapable component of life. Even as a scientist, he had to admit that many things were ultimately unclassifiable. It was why classifying the rest was so rewarding.

***

In the end, it was absurdly simple, as so many of their cases were. Givens seemed to be waiting for them when they arrived at his apartment. He opened the door, stepped back to let them in, and didn't bother to deny any of the charges leveled against him. The only thing he said was, "I left the stove on. I should go turn it off before you put the handcuffs on."

Grissom and Sara stood by the car and watched as Givens was ushered into a black-and-white.

"I don't understand," Sara said. "He didn't fight. He didn't run. He didn't do anything."

Grissom shrugged and opened the driver's side door. "He killed the woman he loved. Maybe after that, he couldn't do anything else."

"That's not love." She walked around to the passenger side and climbed in, picking up the conversation without a pause. "He beat her so much that she had to get a restraining order, and then he couldn't stand that she'd left him, so he killed her? It's sick. It's not love."

"You're oversimplifying." He waited for the police cars to pull out, then fell in behind them as they drove to the station. There would be paperwork awaiting them. Life, death, victims, criminals -- the situation varied, but paperwork was a constant.

"Tell me you're not defending him." He shot her a look, and she backed down. "Sorry."

"Human behavior isn't always predictable or explainable."

"I know," she said, turning away to stare out the window at the buildings flickering past. "It's just...these are always the worst ones, you know? It makes sense in a way, but I'll never understand it."

He wanted to tell her that her persistent innocence was a good thing, but he wasn't sure he believed it.

Prompt:

_Swinging between life and death  
Here, in death's dream kingdom  
The waking echo of confusing strife  
Is it a dream or something else  
When the surface of the blackened river  
Is a face that sweats with tears?_

from "The Wind Sprang Up at Four O'Clock"


End file.
